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An Address 



by 



JAMES A. WAKEFIELD 

before 

The Pennsylvania Society 
Sons of the American Revolution 



January Twenty-Second 
Nineteen Hundred Seventeen 



CAESAR RODNEY AND HIS RIDE 

EVERY Pennsylvanian loves the grand old State. Her soil, her 
history, and her name are sacred. To most of the world she 
is known as the "Keystone State.'' There are four reasons 
given for the adoption of this name: — 

(1) If you look at a map of the thirteen original states you 
will notice that they form an irregular arch. Pennsylvania is 
located at the center of this great arch and may be called for that 
reason the Keystone of the Arch of States. 

(2) In the early days, Pennsylvania was the most important 
State in foreign trade. Hundreds of vessels spread their white 
sails to the breezes of the Delaware River, and Philadelphia was 
the greatest center of trade in the new world. Some contend that 
it was given the title of "Keystone State" because of this commer- 
cial prominence. 

(3) When the new Capitol building was erected at Washing- 
ton all the stones were not needed and some of them were used to 
make a bridge over Rock Creek, a small stream flowing between 
Washington and Georgetown. Thirteen stones of the arch were 
visible and on the faces of these stones were carved the abbrevia- 
tions of the names of the states. PA. was cut on the central or 
keystone, and it is possible that this stone was chosen for Penn- 
sylvania in honor of the position and importance of the State 
and in honor of the part Pennsylvania took in (he adoption of the 
great Declaration of Independence. 

(4) July 1, 177(i, Ihe Declaration of Independence was re- 
ported to the Continental Congress. The patriots knew that our 
country could not be free and independent unless the Declaration 
was adopted. The linal vote was delayed three days to give 



Franklin and Samuel Adams a chance to bring Pennsylvania into 
line for the measure, and to give Caesar Rodney time to ride from 
his home in Delaware to cast his vote and his State's vote for 
freedom. On July 4, Delaware was ready to vote, for Caesar 
Rodney was there, and the roll was called. All the States voted 
"Aye" until Pennsylvania, the last State, was reached. She was 
entitled to seven delegates. Two doubtful ones were persuaded 
to remain away. Five were present. Franklin and Wilson voted 
"Aye"; Humphreys and Willing voted "Nay." Here was a tie. 
John Morion was outside listening to a crowd of friends who were 
begging him to vote "Nay." The President, John Hancock, began 
to talk and did not stop until he saw Morton enter the hall. Then 
Morton's name was called and he voted "Aye." Thus for four days 
the noble men of that Congress had been building the great arch 
of human liberty and Caesar Rodney's ride and John Morton's vote 
made Pennsylvania "The Keystone of the Arch of Liberty." 

The greatest ride of Revolutionary times was the ride of (Caesar 
Rodney. Paul Revere rode to save army supplies at Lexington and 
(Concord, but Caesar Rodney rode to save the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. In 177G the Colonies were in great excitement. The 
Continental Congress was sitting in old Independence Hall in 
Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson had written the great Charter of 
our Freedom, and July 1st it was presented to Congress by Ben- 
jamin Harrison of Virginia. Would these brave men dare to defy 
King George and his armies? Yes, if the Colonies stood united for 
freedom. No, if the Colonies were divided. As has been stated, 
four of the seven Pennsylvania delegates were opposed, but two 
of these four were persuaded to stay away by Franklin and Adams, 
and thus they had the State's ready to vote. In Delaware, Thomas 
McKean was for independence, George Read was opposed at this 
time, and Caesar Rodney was eighty miles away down in Sussex 
County; and Caesar Rodney was needed to carry Delaware for the 
Declaration of Independence. 

The subject of this paper, some authorities say, was born in 
Dover, Delaware, 1730, but the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Ameri- 
can History gives it as 1728. He died in 1784. He was Sheriff of 
Kent County in 1758, then Justice and Judge, and before 1762 he 






sal in the Delaware Assc'inf)l.v. In 1765 he was sent as delegate 
from Delaware to the Stamp Act Congress at New York. In 1768, 
while a member of the State Assembly, he offered resolutions 
"totally prohibiting the importation of slaves into the province of 
Delaware," and pleaded so earnestly for its adoption that it lacked 
only two votes of passing. He had twice petitioned the King for 
freedom of his people. He was Speaker of the Delaware Assembly 
from 1769 to 1774 and of the Delaware popular convention in 1774. 
He was a member of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776, 
was a member of the Committee to draft a statement of Rights and 
Grievances, and signed the Declaration of Independence under the 
dramatic circumstances hereafter to be told. He served under 
General Washington in the Delaware campaign from 1776 to 1777, 
and was President of Delaware from 1778 to 1782. He was a 
Brigadier General of Militia anil a noble Patriot. 

On the oth of September, 1774, the delegates of eleven Colonies 
met at Philadelphia, in the City Tavern on Second Street, above 
Walnut, to select a place to hold the first Continental Congress. 
The State House (Independence Hall) was either occupied or likel> 
to be by the Pennsylvania Assembly. The Carpenters Company 
offered the use of their hall and it was accepted. To this lirst 
('ongress John and Samuel Adams came from Massachusetts to 
stand for freedom; George Washington, tall, modest, resolute, the 
hero of the Braddock (Campaign in 1755, walked by the side of 
Patrick Henry, whose eloquent speech against the Stamp Act in 
May, 1765, rang round the world. Thomas Mifllin, Samuel Rhoads, 
Charles Humphreys, George Ross, Joseph Galloway, John Dickin- 
son, John Morton and Edward Biddle were Pennsylvania's dele- 
gates. Caesar Rodney was there. A rumor had just reached the 
city that a British fleet had cannonaded and destroyed Boston. 
Reverend Jacob Duche, of C-hrist Church, opened the deliberations 
by reading the 35lh Psalm. With a voice tense with emotion he 
read that Song of the Sweet Singer of Israel: "Plead my cause, O 
Lord, with them that strive with me, fight against them that fight 
against me. Take hold of my shield and buckler and stand up for 
mine help." The whole Assembly was profoundly moved. It 
seemed as if heaven had ordained that psalm to be read that 
morning. 



This Congress grew out of a general meeting held in Carpen- 
ters Hall, July 15, 1774, At this meeting was passed a declaration 
of rights and an invitation to all the Colonies to send delegates to 
Philadelphia for the purpose of acting as a unit. against English 
oppression. 

This Congress adopted fourteen measures, in all of which 
Caesar Rodney participated. British goods were not to be im- 
ported into the Colonies, in order to lessen the profits of the 
English merchants and to show that the Colonists resented taxing 
the people without their consent, nor were troops to be quartered 
in time of peace or men tried without a jury. Teas, wines, coffee, 
pepper, molasses and syrups were not to be imported or used in 
the Colonies. The slave trade between America and Africa was 
to be wholly stopped. More sheep were to be raised, to be killed 
sparingly, and none were to be exported. It passed also the 
famous Declaration of Rights: (1) the right to life, liberty and 
property; (2) the right to tax themselves; (3) the right to assemble 
peacefully to petition against grievances; (4) the rights of English- 
men and of their charters. 

When the Congress closed, the Assembly of Pennsylvania gave 
them a banquet where this sentiment was given: "May the sword 
of the parent never be stained by the blood of her children"; to 
which Caesar Rodney observed, "This is not a toast but a prayer." 

In such a school as this was he prepared. 

When the critical moment came he was eighty miles from 
Congress and his presence was needed to make his country free 
and independent. Thomas McKean asked Benjamin Harrison to 
plead for time and sent a horseman South on July 1st to find him 
and tell him to hasten to Philadelphia. The messenger found him 
ill at Byfield, one of his farms near Dover. He had suffered for 
four years with a cancer that had attacked his face to such an 
extent that he was compelled to wear a veil to conceal the fearful 
ravages of the disease. In spite of the terrific heat, the urging of 
relatives, the commands of a nurse and physician who warned him 
that the ride might mean his death, soon as he heard the news he 
called out, "Saddle the black," sprang upon his faithful horse, 



faced the North and galloped away. His determination and eager- 
ness soon left the messenger behind. 

When the sun rose over Philadelphia, July 4, 1776, and the 
anxious delegates gathered in Independence Hall, (Caesar Rodney 
was still many miles to the South. His horse was jaded, his 
cancer-scarred face showed signs of physical pain and mental 
anxiety. He urged his horse along and lol in the distance he sees 
the curling smoke of a hundred chimneys. He is nearing the city. 
Is he too late? Has the vote been taken? Through the streets 
rang the sound of rushing hoof beats and into the yard before the 
Hall, dashed a foaming dusty steed. The rider sprang to the 
ground, threw the rein to a groom and hastened to the door, where 
he was met by McKean, who embraced him. Booted and spurred, 
tired and dusty, amidst a silence in which the heart throbs of 
Liberty were heard, Caesar Rodney entered Congress. Delaware 
was called. McKean voted "Aye," Read "Nay"; and then the famous 
rider arose and said: "As I believe the voice of my constituents 
and of all fair, sensible and honest men is in favor of independ- 
ence, and as my own judgment concurs with them, I vote for 
independence." The story of "Ring grandpa, ring," though a myth, 
stirs every man in whose veins there courses one drop of Revolu- 
tionary blood. 

The historians and romanticists have missed the true and 
dramatic story of Caesar Rodney's ride and the lesson it teaches. 
'Tis said, if you would awaken a flame of martial spirit in the sons 
of France, appeal to them as descendants of those whose eagles 
flew in triumph over Wagram and Austerlitz and Lodi Bridge, and 
bore upon their outstretched wings the glorious destinies of theii' 
favored child of fortune, their thunderbolt of war. If you would 
arouse Caledonia to battle, appeal to her sons as descendants of 

"Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled 

Scots wham Bruce has often led," 

and at once from Loch Lomond, from Ben Nevis and from the 
Grampian Hills her kilted warriors will troop to death as to a 
feast, stimulated by the recollection of the glorious deeds of those 
from whose loins they sprang. And hereafter, if eloquence shall 



want a theme to awaken her subliniest efforts, or poetry shall seek 
some shrine at which to offer her most harmonious numbers, 
orator and bard need not go back to the romantic period of Agin- 
court and Crecy, when Henry V led his armies to victory and 
Douglass poured out the vials of his wrath across Northumbrian 
plains, but tell of the deeds of our glorious ancestors who fought 
at Valley Forge and Yorktown; of those who sleep in consecrated 
graves tonight in Trenton Woods and Germantown (iroves; of those 
heroes whose battle cry for freedom was hushed in death, a cry 
scarcely stilled ere the acclamations of angels awoke them to 
sublimer greeting; of that rider who rode with death to save a 
nation, and whom the poet Beamish sings: 

Teachers, tell us of Rodney, Rodney of Delaware! 

Some of you start and stammer. Others stand mute and stare. 

Put up your sums and fables. Listen that you may hear 

The gallop of Caesar Rodney with death always riding near. 

Heat, like a thick, black blanket, closely on Byfield lay. 
It harried the flesh and spirit of him who waited for day. 
His fevered eyes watched the candle that blinked like a far-off star. 
They looked from a face upon which all the grace was hid by a 
cruel scar. 

Out of the heat and blackness, clamors a-trooping came. 
Barking of dogs and thunder of knocks on a door's stout frame. 
Sternly a nurse hissed, "Silence!" and then came a stranger's call: 
"McKean bids you ride. 1 will be at your side. Come quickly or 
freedom will fall." 

"He'll die on the way," shrilled a servant, but Rodney was out of 

his bed. 
"Boots, horses and spurs," he commanded, "and the veiling to cover 

my head." 
"Horses are posted to meet you," the voice in the doorway said. 
"It is well. I am ready." The weak voice was steady. "I will 

vote or you'll bear me there dead." 

It's seventy miles to the Slate House in the city of William Penn, 
Seventy miles of torture to forward the freedom of men. 
For some in the Congress were Tories and others too timid to dare. 
So Rodney must ride, that his vote might decide, the ballot of 
Delaware. 

Neck by neck through old Dover they galloped, and Rodney bent 
low to his task. 



It was gray in tho cast when he tarried to cover his face with the 

mask. 
A woman screamed loud at the vision, but Rodney was riding again, 
Though, beneath him, the back of his horse was a rack to torture 

the bravest of men. 

Great weariness came upon Rodney. He galloped as one in a 
dream ; 

But lightning-like pains broke his trances as rocks break a moun- 
tain stream. 

Somewhere, in the misty morning, his comrade faltered and fell. 

Thence rode at his side, with a long silent stride, a shape thai 
Rodney knew well. 

The tropical heat-haze closed round him, the veiled and the wraith 

at his side. 
At inns and by-lanes he changed horses, then, on with the furious 

ride. 
Weakness at last made him falter, he fed and then slumbered 

awhile. 
But the will was so strong that the rest was not h)ng, for the goal 

still lay many a mile. 

And then he came into the cit>, the half-Tory town of Pcnn, 
Down Passyunk Road he galloped, past wondering women and men. 
His veil streamed, a pennon of freedom, and his limbs hung like 

bags of sand; 
But the horse he bestrode knew the turns of the road and needed 

no guiding hand. 

So to the State House came Rodney, merely the shell of a man, 
There McKean met and bore him as gently as only a sturdy friend 

can. 
Steadied him in the chamber, and gloried to hear him declare: 
"For the right to be free, and to end Tyrann>, we vote. Aye for 

our Delaware." 

You know the rest of the story, you teachers, who teach by rote. 
How jjrudent South ('arolina announced the change of its vote; 
How Pennsylvania also veered round in Freedom's gale; 
How the Thirteen broke from their necks the yoke, and a nation 
came thiough travail. 

Paint us a noble portrait, Stor\ or Sargent or (Ihase, 
One of the missing signer, show us an eager face, 
(ilorified through its veiling, and we will uplift it where 
He ended his ride with death by his sick", brave Rodney of Dela- 
ware. 



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